H-Sphere Reseller Step-By-Step Beginner guide: Welcome To MatrixReseller! Welcome to the MatrixReseller H-Sphere Setup guide! If you have just signed up for a reseller plan and want to get in and get going FAST, this is the guide for you. We cannot stress enough that you should follow this guide exactly as written. Once you get through this tutorial you should have a good working knowledge of what your H-Sphere panel can do as well as a feel for where everything is at inside the panel. Do not let the initial complexity of H-Sphere intimidate you. H-Sphere has many features and can seem quite overwhelming to a new user who is not familiar with this system. Once you become familiar with H- Sphere and all of its many features, we are sure you will be amazed at what it can do and how it can help your business grow in ways you never thought possible. Blue Boxes: Throughout this tutorial are blue boxes containing useful information regarding the setup of your account. If you are an experienced H-Sphere user or have used this tutorial before, you may skip these extra sections. Keep in mind that if at anytime throughout the intitial setup process you have any questions or need assistance, we are here to help! Vortech/MatrixReseller offers setup, support and assistance setting up your account free of charge 24/7/365. Its as easy as emailing support@vortechhosting.com or calling 407-323-5634 option 2. Introduction The first thing to remember when using the H-Sphere system is that it is split up into three separate sections, or panels which you have access to. Knowing the names and differences between these panels will make your setup and use of H- SPhere much easier. It will also help greatly when seeking support or troubleshooting issues pertaining to the system. The three areas of H-Sphere are referred to as: I. The Reseller Panel II. The Administrative Panel III. The End-User Panel I. The Reseller Panel The H-SPhere Reseller Panel is the section of H-Sphere you will most likely use the least. This panel contains information pertaining specifically to your account with us, MatrixReseller. Some of the common uses for the Reseller Panel are: Changing your Reseller Account Password Submitting a support ticket to MatrixReseller Change or modify your billing information or credit card number View or print invoices from MatrixReseller Check your overall account resources used and pricing for possible overages Change your CP URL Add or upgrade a Reseller Account Enter your Administrative Panel file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (1 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
II. The Administrative Panel The H-Sphere Administrative Panel is the control center for your entire Reseller Account. This is the area where you build your hosting business from the ground up. Anything pertaining to your hosting plans, users, your customer billing, customer support, cash flow and branding features are available to you in this area. Some of the key features of the Administrative Panel are: Create Unix or Windows Hosting plans for your business Control all resources and pricing for your plans Create grouped plans Setup automated billing features which integrate with your merchant account or gateway provider Setup a support ticket center for your end-user clients Control language, layout, look and feel, currency type and global settings for your account Suspend, un-suspend, search for, charge, credit or change any end-user account manually Create custom DNS zones, server aliases and custom nameservers Change or specify rules on how your new account signups are treated or moderated III. The End-User Panel The H-Sphere End-User panel contains all of the features you would expect for managing a website or number of websites. This panel can be provided separately to your end-user clients or webmasters. The features available in the End-User panel depend entirely on what resources you have made available in the hosting plans you have created. Some of the possible features available to your clients in the End-User panel are: FTP, SSH and File Manager control Email features including webmail, autoresponders, forwards and lists Ms SQL, PgSQL or MySQL Database setup and management including PHPMyAdmin Creation or addition of domains, sub-domains, stop-gap domains, aliases, redirects and IP addresses. Optional third-party applications such as oscommerce, phpbb, guestbooks, counters and other pre-installed scripts. DNS or MX record modification ASP,.NET, Cold Fusion, PHP, SSI, MIME, CGI, Custom Error Pages and other Web Service controls Billing control and invoices of the end-user as they relate to your client and your company billing Change or upgrade the user account to available plans within your plan group IV. Getting Started Notice: If you have registered your nameservers with your registrar (ie, Network solutions, GoDaddy, Register.Com, bulkregister etc..) you may skip Step 18. All others READ CAREFULLY. This may be the most important step when setting up your reseller plans, because if your nameservers are not registered with your domain registrar NONE of your reseller or end-user domains will work. You CANNOT use our nameservers to service your reseller account and end-user domains. 1. Open your "Welcome email" that you received from MatrixReseller: " Dear (Your Name), Thank you for choosing Vortech Inc. for your Web hosting needs. We look forward to working with you to make sure you get the most of your account, and we wish you success with your online venture. To access your account with the Control Panel, use the following information: URL: https://cp.hsphere.cc:8443/psoft/servlet/psoft.hsphere.cp Login: RESELLER USERNAME Password: RESELLER PASSWORD If you have any questions concerning your new account, please write us E-Mail: support@vortechhosting.com file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (2 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
Phone: 407-323-5634 Thank you for your business, Vortech Inc. 2. Click on the control Panel URL Link in this email to bring up the login screen below. This login screen logs you into your Reseller Panel. Bookmark this address for future use. 3. Login with your Username and password as Listed in your Email. This is your Reseller Panel. You will now see this screen: file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (3 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
This is your main Reseller panel. Click HOME to view or change your personal billing information, upgrade your plan type or other functions pertaining to your account with Vortech/MatrixReseller. Once you've completed this setup guide and your Service domain is setup and DNS for your nameservers propogated you may also change your CP URL from http://cp.hsphere.cc:8080 to your own Service Domain URL such as http://cp.your- Hosting-Company.com:8080. 4. You must now create an Administrative account. Fill out the appropriate Information as outlined below. Note: You Cannot Use the Same Reseller Username that you used to get to this point. Create a new one specifically for your Administrative Account. NEVER delete your Admin account! Admin Login: Your Administrative username to manage your reseller plan Admin Password: Your Admin account password Confirm Password: Type your password again Description: Create a descirption for your Admin account such as (Reseller Admin) E-Mail: Your Admin email address. Perferably a home ISP or address not related to your account. 5. Click the Submit Button. 6. You will now see this screen: Once your done exploring the Reseller Panel you can at anytime click on the Green LOGIN button to enter your Administrative panel. Congratulations! You have created your Administrative account and will now see the Administrative panel as shown below: file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (4 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
!IMPORTANT! At this point you cannot create any hosting plans or websites until you setup your Service DNS zones, Nameservers, Aliases and Service plan that services your entire reseller account. To do this proceed to Step 7 V. Nameserver Creation In order for your reseller account to function, you must create four (4) custom nameservers associated with your Service Domain. Typically a Service Domain is the domain name associated with your business or hosting Company such as www. VortechHosting.com. The four nameservers you create in H-Sphere will be based off of this domain and used by all end-user clients you host. Example: ns.vortechhosting.com and ns1.nortechhosting.com. While you are required to submit and register all four custom nameservers, the domains you host will only use 2 randomly selected nameservers at a time. H-Sphere automatically assigns these nameservers during a user-account signup. These two authoritive nameservers will be included in the end-user welcome email and also available anytime from within the end-user panel. Creating Your own Custom NameServers, DNS Zones and Service Domain DNS. 7. Click on E.MANAGER on the Left side of the screen file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (5 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
8. You will see this screen: Click on ADD DNS ZONE 9. Under NAME, put in the domain you want to use as your reseller service domain Under Admin e-mail make sure to use a period "." instead of the "@" symbol Check the box for "Allow third domain level hosting" In the Master Server leave it as NS.HSPHERE.CC (You'll change this later) In the Slave 1 Server leave it as NS1.HSPHERE.CC (You'll change this later) 10. Click the Submit button You will now see this on your screen: file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (6 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
11. Now Click on the EDIT button You will now see this screen: 12. Click on "Add instant alias" You will now see this screen: For Prefix, you can use the first letter of your service domain. For Shared IP tag leave it as "2" Click the Submit button You will now see this screen: 13. In the left navigation menu click on "Server Aliases" file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (7 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
You will now see this in the top portion of your screen: For the purpose of this tutorial, we will use tutorial.com as our Service domain. For your Reseller DNS server aliases you would use your own Service domain in place of "tutorial.com" Keep in mind that the prefix you use for your nameservers does not matter. Typically a nameserver prefix is 2 or 3 characters long such as: "dns" or "ns". For example: dns.tutorial.com. The prefix you use for your 4 nameservers does not matter as long as these are registered in the exact same way with your domain registrar. For ease of use we recommend you use the same naming convention for your nameservers as we use for ours: ns, ns1, ns2 and ns3. 14. Once you have entered your Reseller DNS server aliases, click the Submit button. (This will take a few minutes) You will now see the submitted nameservers in the top portion of your screen: 15. Submiting your Server aliases: On the lower portion of your screen you will see all of the server aliases that service your reseller account. The Vortech H-Sphere server cluster includes over 70 servers that will host your websites, control panel, mail, databases and other reseller applications.!important! MatrixReseller add new servers to the H-Sphere cluster every few weeks. You must check this screen from time to time and submit any new server aliases which you see. Your newer clients will then be assigned to the newer machines. this prevents our systems from ever becoming overloaded and provides you with the added redundancy of multiple web servers. Here is a partial screen-shot of the server aliases available to you. file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (8 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
16. Click the Submit button to Submit all of your server aliases: (This will take a few minutes) On the lower portion of your screen you will now see your submitted aliases: If you would like to see present server status and hardware configurations for any of our webservers visit: http://www.matrixreseller.com/servers/ 17. Registering Your Reseller custom Nameservers: If you have registered your nameservers with your registrar (ie, Network solutions, GoDaddy, Register. Com, bulkregister etc..) you may skip Step 18. All others READ CAREFULLY. This may be the most important step when setting up your reseller plans, because if your nameservers are not registered NONE of your reseller domains will work. If you are not sure how to change or register custom nameservers for your Service Domain, contact your domain registrar for instructions on how to do this. Vortech/MatrixReseller clients who purchase domains directly from us can have this done for them free of charge upon request. Unfortunately due to ICANN and Domain Registrar regulations we cannot do this for you if the domain was purchased elsewhere. 18. On the top portion of the Server Aliases screen (inside E.Manager) you will now see your nameservers and the corresponding Ip addresses for each. file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (9 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
The most important thing to remember when creating your nameservers is that your nameservers will never be recognized by servers or computers across the internet until they are REGISTERED by an accredited registrar. You must register your nameservers with the domain registrar with whom you bought the domain. None of the domains, email or FTP addresses will work including temporary URL's created by H-Sphere based off of your domain, ie. (1P4646546.yourservicedomain.com) until you have registered your nameservers.!important! Do Not submit ns.hsphere.cc or anything containing the domain hsphere.cc to your registrar. You must use your own domain based custom nameservers. Failure to do so will result in email and other malfuntions. Once you submit your nameservers to your registrar, typically a 48 hour wait is standard before these nameservers become active across the internet. This is called DNS propogation and can take anywhere between 12 and 72 hours to complete. Due to the literally thousands of different domain Registrars in the world, we cannot possibly help with this step. All Registrars are different and use different interfaces and protocols for registering nameservers. If you are not sure how to register a nameserver with your Registrar contact them for help or support. VI. Service Plan and Service Domain Account Creating the Service Plan that will run your Reseller Web Site. You must create a service plan in H-Sphere to host your own personal/business website that will service your hosting account. This Service account will function like any other user account you host and will have all of the same features available to it. It is recommended that you limit domains hosted under your Service Account to only those domains which you yourself own or directly use in relation to your Hosting or Web Business. Other plans for Clients can easily be created later. Leave the billing setting in the plan setup wizard to "Without billing" on your Service Plan. 1. Click on INFO on the Left Navigation bar: file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (10 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
2. Click on Plan Creation wizards You will now see this in the center of your screen: For your service plan choose either a Unix or Windows plan wizard. This cannot be easily changed later so choose carefully based on your own personal hosting needs. For the purpose of this tutorial we will use the Unix Plan Wizard. Most Resellers will choose either a Windows or Unix Plan wizard on this step. Choosing either a Windows or Unix plan will allow you to setup your hosting environment based on either operating system, with the benefits (or limitations) of each. Vortech/MatrixReseller provides you the flexiblity of creating Hosting Plans for both Windows AND Unix Operating systems. Currently we use Windows 2000 and FreeBSD. You may setup as many Windows or Unix plans as you like, or all of one type if you wish at no extra charge. 3. Click the SELECT button at the right next to your chosen plan wizard. You will now see this screen: For Plan Name use "Service Plan" For Service Domain make sure you check the "Include" box. (highlighted in RED) file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (11 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
STOP! Make sure you've checked the "Include" checkbox next to the Service Domain resource as shown above. This is a common oversight and a very important step. DO NOT check this "Include" box for any other plans in your reseller account. Scroll Down the screen and check any boxes for plan resources you will need for your Service domain. Make sure you do not activate a resource you do not need such as Site Studio or Frontpage. This may cause problems later if you do not intend on using these tools. file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (12 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
Always set billing to "Without billing", especially on your Service Plan and plans for your own personal or business use. There is no need to set billing features or resource prices until you have your merchant account or gateway configured and setup in H-Sphere to bill your client plans. Setting billing to anything other than "without billing" on your service plan is pointless unless you plan on charging yourself. 4. Once you are satisfied with your plan settings click the NEXT button: You will now see this screen: You may set your traffic, space and mail quotas according to your needs. Remember: All Traffic and disk Space is based on actual usage. This allows you to oversell these resources and avoid penalty or overage prices unless they are actually used by you or your clients. 5. Click on the CREATE Service Plan button. You will now see this in the center of your screen: file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (13 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
Notice the Service Plan's Signup access is turned to OFF by default. It is always a good idea to leave Signup Access OFF for any plans you create without billing enabled. This will protect you from unauthorized users signing up for your active plans and taking up your valuable reasources. 6. You will need to turn ON your Service Domain to sign yourself up to use your new plan. Click the button to turn it. 7. Now your ready to Signup for your Service Plan: Click on "SIGNUP" in the left navigation bar: You will now see this screen: 8. Click on the SELECT button to the right of Service Plan In a new browser window you will see your H-Sphere signup screen: file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (14 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
9. Click the arrows to proceed through the Service Plan signup. 10. Choose to ACCEPT the END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT. Click the arrows to proceed You will now see the Contact Information screen: NOTE: You are simply signing up for your own Service Plan, not a new Vortech/MatrixReseller account. This is what the signup form for your clients accounts signing up for your plans will look like as well. You can customize this text and graphics for this form in the "Look and Feel" section of your Administrattive Panel. 11. At the email prompt, do not use an email address containing your Service Domain. You will not receive your Service Account setup info if you do. Use your "home" ISP address or email domain that is not currently using any of your reseller services. ie., email@bellsouth.net, email@earthlink.net, email@aol. com etc.. Using an email address based off of your Service Domain for the first signup will cause issues on the network when trying to send you your Welcome information. Since your Service Domain is not propogated to our network yet the email sent will be in "limbo" because our DNS server have the domain listed as if it were actually on our network. Once you complete the setup and your Service Domain and nameservers have propogated you will not have to worry about this problem happening again for future signups. Click the arrows to proceed 12. Enter in a username and password for this domain (This CANNOT be the same as any other login you file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (15 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
may have entered in this system) MatrixReseller has a very strict password policy on all accounts. The current password requirements are as follows: 1. Password have between 5-12 characters. 2. Password must have 1 upper-case letter. 3. Password must have 1 lower case letter. 4. Password must have 1 number. An example of a good password would be: X4xankI2 Once you've entered the login information, click the arrows to proceed 13. On the Domain Information screen make sure you choose to Register a Service domain as highlighted below in RED. If you do not choose the "Register A Service Domain" option, your account will not function properly and will not be setup as your Service Domain. NOTE: You will never have to choose this option again. This option will not be visible for regular plan signups. Click the arrows to proceed 14. The next screen will have your Service Domain listed in the drop down box. If you do not see your Service Domain here you must repeat Step # 13 correctly. Click the arrows and proceed through to the end of the Signup Script. 15. Your Done! You will now have a received an "End User" version of the Welcome Email. file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (16 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM
Follow the Instructions in the new Email sent to you to upload your files and to gain access to the USER Control Panel for your Service Domain. You can create or modify FTP and sub-ftp accounts in each user panel. It is also wise to turn the Service Domain Plan OFF in the ADMIN Control Panel after you are done.!important! Keep in mind that all temporary URL's and shared IP accounts will not work until your Nameservers have been registered and have propogated across the internet. Additional Resources and Walkthroughs and complete H-Sphere manuals can be found at: Movie tutorials page including reseller and end user tutorials: http://matrixreseller.com/tutorials/index.html Reseller guide: http://matrixreseller.com/support/reseller/html/index.html H-Sphere end user guide: http://matrixreseller.com/support/user_leftmenu/index.html Frequently Asked Questions: http://support.vortechhosting.com/deskpro/upload/faq.php Remember: Help is only a phone call or email away! We would be glad to assist you if you have any problems setting up your account. Our support Department is available 24 hours a day via phone and email. Email: support@vortechhosting.com Phone: 407.323.5634 Option 2 If you can think of anything that would make this walkthrough easier in the future, please email support@vortechhosting.com with your suggestions or comments. file:///c /Documents%20and%20Settings/Craig/My%20Documents/stepbystep/guidetest.html (17 of 17)4/22/2004 1:49:37 PM